


Survival

by Asphodelia



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Zombies, ignores Galavan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelia/pseuds/Asphodelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world wasn't ending, but you wouldn't know that walking the streets of Gotham. The dead had taken the city, and all the surrounding cities, and the only thing that mattered anymore was protecting the people you cared about. It took the outbreak of a zombie virus to make Jim accept that Oswald Cobblepot was such a person to him, but the realization may have come too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

Patient zero had been a professor at the university, a man of science and medicine. He had created the virus by mistake while working tirelessly to cure the disease which was threatening the life of his son. He had not lived to fully realize what he had done because, in his desperation, he had turned to the kinds of connections so many in Gotham do to solve their problems. His lab equipment was paid for by the mob, and when he refused to do the favour that was requested in turn he was shot down.

He got back up.

He was shot down again soon enough, this time in the head, but not before having bitten two of the three enforcers sent to take care of him. The trio were not off of university grounds before those two were feverish, and had just made it back to the city when they turned on and devoured their third companion. 

That was the start of it. The virus spread quickly through the city, and to other cities and towns nearby. The good news, if such a term is appropriate, is that it seemed to be contained within the Gotham region. There had been two downed planes and a few incidences at international airports, but they were taken care of quickly. It did not look like this would be the end of days for humanity, although you certainly wouldn’t know it walking the streets of what had until very recently been the lively city of Gotham. 

The streets were packed with hungry, staggering, corpses. In the early days of the quarantine the government had set up a perimeter around the region and refused to let anybody out, so people who might have escaped were either slaughtered on the roads or had hunkered down in their apartments to try and wait things out. There had been looting, of course, people running wild in the absence of any imposed order. That had ended the lives of many who had tried to hide and wait, and the hoards had taken most of the looters in the first weeks. A month had passed now and things had settled down. Although very few in number, there were still living people in Gotham: especially good hiders, the very clever, the ruthless, and the lucky. 

And Detective James Gordon. 

Initially, when panic had first set in to the city and everyone was scrambling to leave town, he had stayed of his own will. They needed cops to try to keep things orderly, and to shut down those who would take advantage of the fear and confusion for their own purposes. Not a lot of his fellow officers had been willing to volunteer. 

Jim had ultimately failed to maintain any kind of law and order in the dying city, but he had survived and he had managed to save a handful of others. Scottie had wanted to leave town initially and had convinced Harvey, who had initially been helping Jim, to go with her…but by that time it was all over the radio that nobody was being allowed out of the infected zone, so both of them had stayed. The three of them had fortified the precinct, and had started collecting other stragglers. They had a lot of weapons and went on runs for food, which got easier after they recruited Selina. The young thief claimed she was not part of the group and was just helping them with supply runs in exchange for a safer place to sleep, but Jim didn’t really see how that was different than being part of the group. Selina had brought with her an eerie red haired girl, Ivy, who Jim recognized as the daughter of Mario Pepper. That made them a group of eight. 

Jim and Harvey were their best marksman, although Scottie had proven to be a fast learner. Selina was the best at acquiring food and other items they needed, and she had taken to bossing around two teenage brothers who were the first stragglers they had taken in. They had a party devoted to putting down zombies and a party devoted to keeping their people fed. The other straggler they had taken in early on was a doctor, a plastic surgeon specifically. 

They were surviving well enough for the moment, but Jim knew they would not be able to sustain themselves over the long term. 

Good news came one night when the entire group was gathered around the makeshift fire pit they had constructed in the precinct, listening to a battery powered radio. A test had been developed to determine whether or not a person was a carrier of the zombie virus, and people would now be allowed to exit the infected zone after being tested. There was a chance they could all leave and have real lives again, but it would mean journeying for days over zombie-infested terrain to get to a checkpoint. The doctor, who had not set foot outside the precinct since arriving, didn’t even think they should try. Jim saw no other option, though, and while nobody had ever actually said it he was the leader.

They made their plan. The sounds of cars attracted the zombies in large enough numbers that you could not drive through them so, although they had vehicles available, they would not be able to simply drive out of the city. They would hopefully be able to find a working car once they were out of the downtown area, but until then they were on foot. Selina and the brothers would take to the rooftops armed with flares in addition to guns, and they would attempt to distract as many of the undead as they could away from the party on the ground. Once everything was together it was time to leave, except…

They were morbidly lucky that all of their younger group members were orphans because none of them had any family they worried about leaving behind when they left the city. Harvey and Scottie’s families were out of town. The doctor had a wife and children who had died in the first week of the outbreak. Lee had broken up with Jim about a week before and moved out of town. There should be no reason to linger in Gotham. There _was_ no reason to linger in Gotham. 

Jim had not seen Oswald Cobblepot since a good two weeks before the outbreak, when he had ended their association. No more favours, no more ‘friendship’. Cobblepot was a dangerous individual surrounded by other dangerous individuals and he could take care of himself…or he couldn’t, in which case he was already dead. 

Jim, in the far-too-many times he had let his mind wander to Cobblepot since the city had fallen, tried not to let himself dwell on the thought that the gangster might have died. When these thoughts hit him Harvey – or Scottie now that they were closer – always asked him what was wrong. He would gesture around them and say ‘everything’, which he thought was a fair enough answer. 

Jim had admitted to himself even before the outbreak that he thought about Cobblepot more often, and more kindly, than it was appropriate to think about one’s mafia connection. Severing that tie had been about trying to get back to being the kind of man he wanted to be, but he had also hoped having no more reason to go to Cobblepot would help him move on from the unwanted fixation. Jim couldn’t put a word to the feeling that arose in his chest whenever the mobster saw him and his eyes lit up, but he knew that whatever it was no good could come of it. 

The fixation remained, though, and as his group prepared to set out Jim couldn’t help wanting to delay the trip to look for him. He had already let himself go looking for Cobblepot once, in the early days before Selina and Ivy had joined them. He had been alone on a food run and realized he was in the neighbourhood where Cobblepot had – at least at one time – lived with his mother. He had not been to their home before and only knew the address because he had seen it in a file. 

Jim had had to take out five of the undead once he was already inside the building, which was not a good sign for there being anybody alive in the apartments. Still, he had made his way up to the address that belonged to Gertrude Kapelput and been glad for the occasional zombie threat because it distracted him from wondering why he was so hoping to find her son. 

Cobblepot had not been there. Gertrude had, in a sense. She was snarling at him from the second he opened the door. She was no threat – her hands were chained behind her and to old radiator – but she was proof of her son’s absence. It was clear that Gertrude had been chained up and left behind by somebody who didn’t have it in them to put her to rest after she turned. Jim considered respecting his wishes and leaving her…It was impossible not to pity the figure straining at her chains and biting uselessly at the air, though, so Jim ended it. He had not been able to think of a reason to go searching for Cobblepot a second time aside from wanting to, so he had not gone. 

Now that his group was going to leave the city ‘wanting to’ seemed like reason enough, like it should have been reason enough before. Jim knew in the moment before they were to leave, as Selina was hugging Ivy goodbye (hopefully temporarily), that he would never forgive himself if Cobblepot was dead. He should have found him, should have kept him safe. It didn’t matter why he cared about him or if it was right of him to – he did. 

He wasn’t leaving Gotham without Oswald Cobblepot.

“Hey Jim, you got that bag with the rations?” Harvey had turned to him after seeing Selina and the brothers off. He, Scottie, the doctor, and even Ivy were armed and ready to go. These people had become Jim’s family, but he would not be going with them. 

“No. Listen, Harvey…” He pulled his partner aside to break the news. “I’m not going.”

“What do you mean you’re not going?”

“I’ve got something I have to do. I’ll head for the checkpoint when I’m done.” 

“You won’t make it alone, and our chances are aren’t as good without you. You’re really going to walk away from this group? What unfinished business could you possibly have that even matters anymore?” It was true that not much _did_ matter anymore – not law and order, not crime – aside from taking care of the people close to you, and Jim didn’t quite know how to explain that that’s why he was staying behind to do. Harvey interpreted his silence at least partially correctly. “…What’s her name?”

“Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.” This might be the last time Jim ever saw Harvey and he didn’t want there to be any secrets between them. 

“Well, shit.” Harvey only looked mildly surprised and Jim didn’t know how he should feel about that. “You couldn’t have said anything earlier? We could have had the Doc lobotomize you.” 

“I should have gone out and found him day one, and now I might be too late, but –“

“Yeah yeah, I know when your mind is made up.” Harvey seemed to have accepted Jim’s choice, although he was clearly far from happy about it. “We’ll meet up on the outside.”

“Since when are you an optimist?”

“Shut up.” 

Harvey squeezed him goodbye and then Jim was gone, out the back way to avoid explaining himself to anybody else. Scottie might have cried, or hit him, and Ivy he just couldn’t have faced. The group had become very tight knit, but the knowledge of what he and Harvey had done to Ivy’s father had coloured all of their interactions with her. It had only been very recently that it seemed like the red haired girl had started really trusting any of them besides Selina, and now he was leaving her. It was lucky Selina was already gone because he wouldn’t have been able to face her either, and she probably would have found a way to catch him and make him.

Jim told himself he would see them all again and make it up to them when he did. 

The first place Jim went to was ‘Oswald’s’. Jim did not think Oswald had been spending much time at the club anymore, but he still owned it and it still bore his name. There was a chance he could have gone there and fortified it or something. Getting there took Jim most of the day, and he found nothing. The place had been looted for alcohol so the doors were open, and inside there was a zombie stuck under an overturned table. That was it. Jim searched the premises anyways and found there was an apartment above the club. It was empty, and it had a door that locked. That made it as good a place as any to spend the night, since trying to get back to the precinct in the dark would have been suicidal. Jim barricaded the door, just in case, before settling down in the bed to get some sleep. 

As he drifted off he was very aware that Oswald – he had started thinking of him using his first name since he had decided to look for him – had spent quite a few nights sleeping in the bed he now lay in. His last wakeful thoughts were about whether he would have been welcome to share it then, how he probably would have been, and how he had probably missed his chance now.

Jim had a small breakfast of jerky when he woke up. They had had more rations stocked up at the precinct than they could carry so he hadn’t felt bad about taking some for himself. He would need to go back for more, actually, since the next place he could think to look for Oswald was his new apartment in the ritzier part of town and that would be more than a day’s walk. 

He made better time getting to the precinct than he had getting from there to the club the day before, so there were still a few hours of daylight left after he stocked his backpack and grabbed an extra weapon. Selina had set up a few ‘safe rooms’ in their area of the city, so she had somewhere to go if a supply run went bad. Jim decided he would go to the farthest safe room he knew about and start from there the next day. 

Getting to the safe room was a lot harder when you were not a light, agile, adolescent girl who could jump around on rooftops and fire escapes. There were also an inordinate amount of zombies in his path, likely attracted by the group that had gone through the previous day. Jim had a few close calls that day and only made it to the safe room an hour after dark. 

The next day started off better, but was far worse a few hours in. Jim did not have Selina’s grace on the rooftops, but there were a series of buildings in that part of town which were close enough together for him to manage them easily enough. He had to go back down to the street when the buildings got taller again, though. There were a manageable amount of zombies and Jim was able to send the few larger groups he did encounter out of his path by launching a flare to distract them. It was when he reached an underpass that everything went bad. Shots were fired suddenly from on top of it, causing Jim to retreat backwards a few paces.

“Drop your bag and your weapons!” The shooter called as he, and two companions, stood from where they had been hiding on the overpass. 

“I don’t want any trouble!” Jim called back, gun drawn on the shooter.

“Then now, more than ever, you are in the wrong town.” The familiar voice – Gilzean? - came from directly behind Jim and then the world went black.

When he awoke he was staring into the most beautiful green eyes in the world framed by strikingly black hair and a pale, freckled, face. There was a comfortable bed underneath him and a slender hand stroking his hair.

“Oswald?” 

“Jim! You’re awake.” Oswald recoiled from him like he had been caught red handed doing something terrible. He looked distressed for a second before gaining his composure. He looked exactly the same as ever. Jim himself was a great deal scruffier, all stubble and torn clothing, but Oswald was exactly the same.

“You’re alive.” 

“I am. Sorry to disappoint.” Oswald said without looking back at Jim as he moved towards a sitting area over by a fireplace. There was a coffee table there covered in various papers, most of which looked like maps, and Oswald busied himself with looking them over. 

Although he had already accepted that he cared about the criminal a great deal Jim had not fully admitted to himself the romantic nature of his feelings for Oswald until that moment. He wanted nothing more than to run to him, to touch him and hold him and prove to himself that he was really there – to kiss him and do whatever else it took to prove to Oswald that he cared. Oswald, despite how close he had been when Jim first awoke, seemed to have no interest in even looking at him though. 

“Now, first things first – you must have a stronghold. Where is it, how many people do you have, and how heavily armed are they?”

Jim blinked as he sat up, and that is when he realized that his right wrist was handcuffed to the bed. 

“We used to be friends, so I would much rather you answer me now than force me to have Victor ask you a second time.”


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim learns about Oswald's life since the outbreak.

The closest Oswald had ever come to threatening Jim was when Jim came to formally end their business relationship. He had reminded Jim of the way in which he had been reinstated as a detective, and of the fact that he could not prove the murder he had committed had been self-defence. Oswald had not outright threatened to have him exposed – it was more the suggestion of a threat he could potentially make – and Jim had never really believed he would play that card. Oswald just would not do that to him.

Being threatened by him now hurt. Jim knew that given how they had left things with each other he should not have expected a warm reception from Oswald, but to actually be treated like an enemy stung. 

Jim realized now that he had been taken prisoner and that Oswald was interrogating him as the representative of either a potential threat or a potential target. It probably depended on his answers. 

Sitting up, Jim considered what he should say. Having romantic feelings for Oswald did not make Jim forget what the other man was: conniving, power hungry, and lethal. Oswald had mostly chosen to show Jim softer sides of his personality and there had been a time when he had told himself those vulnerable moments were all fake. He now accepted that they had been genuine, but having more sides to his personality than the dark one did not make him any less dangerous. If Harvey and the others were still at the precinct Jim wouldn’t have even considered telling him about it. 

They weren’t, though, so Jim didn’t have to worry that he would be putting his friends in danger by being completely honest with the object of his affections. That did not mean he was going to do it, at least not until he knew the situation better.

There was a large cache of weapons in a sealed vault in the precinct (the vault was actually for the confiscated profits of criminal activities, but they had moved the armoury there in case of thieves) and all Jim knew about Oswald’s situation so far was that he had sentries in place to rob and abduct travelers. Jim wanted to protect Oswald, spend time with him, and try to make him happy. He did not want to help him subjugate other survivors and become some kind of wasteland dictator, even if that would probably accomplish all of those other things. The weapons would remain a secret for now. 

“I had a group and we were holed up at the precinct, but we abandoned it a few days ago.”

Oswald nodded, a barely noticeable gesture given that his back was now completely to Jim. He was staring into his fireplace, and Jim wished he would turn around so he could feel less like he was talking to a wall, so he could read him better. So he could see him. Finding Oswald alive after weeks of wondering if he might have been torn apart by the undead was like coming up for air after having been underwater for a long time – you did not immediately resume taking in those little bits of oxygen you needed, you _gasped_.

“You were overrun?”

“No. We decided to try for the checkpoint after we heard they’d started letting people out.” Had Oswald not been listening to the radio?

“I see.” The news did not seem to be a surprise to him. “And you were separated from your party during the escape. How were you for weapons?”

“Alright.” Jim wanted to correct Oswald about why he had left his group, but he did not think he would believe him right now if he claimed to have been looking for him. 

“Jim.” There was a hint of warning in Oswald’s tone.

“We were armed fine. There were eight of us and everyone had a weapon.” Jim knew it would not be believable if he said anything less, and that it would be stupid for Oswald to send anybody to hunt the group down for just a few guns. Also, Jim was not a very good liar so it was best to keep things simple.

“Nothing…extra?”

“The armoury at the precinct was looted, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Oswald was silent and Jim chose to take that as acceptance of his story.

“Are the handcuffs really necessary?”

“Not if you’re going to cooperate.”

“I’ve answered your questions.”

“I suppose you have.” Oswald turned and walked back to Jim then, fishing in his pocket for a key. Jim watched his face as he leaned closer to unlock the cuffs and noted that the proximity seemed to make him uncomfortable. He retreated back over to the fire as soon as he was done and Jim stood to follow him.

“Where are we? Is this your same hq as before?”

“Yes, we secured the building early. I keep the penthouse for my own use. My forces, as well as a number of civilians, live throughout the building. It’s quite the little community.” The corner of Oswald’s mouth curved up; he was clearly proud of what he’d managed to build.

“Do you have a plan yet for getting to the checkpoint?”

“No.” The smile on Oswald’s face died before it was fully formed. He slumped down in a chair by the fire and resumed staring into it. 

“Why not?” Jim took the chair across from him and tried to will the other man to look back over at him. 

“Between the abandoned vehicles in the roads and the abundance of…’zombies’,” Oswald’s face scrunched up like he still found the concept ridiculous. “ready to swarm any kind of car we would be forced to go on foot. Numbers as large as ours would attract _them_ in droves. There would be high casualties.”

“You could go in smaller groups.” 

“We don’t have weapons for everyone.” 

“But if you could find them?” Oswald would probably be annoyed with Jim for having lied moments earlier about the armoury at the precinct, but he would still come clean if it was what it took to get the survivors in the apartment building to safety. 

“No.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” ‘Gotham is home’ is what Oswald had said to him once, but surely he would not give up the chance at _living_ again, elsewhere, in favor of _surviving_ in Gotham. 

“I can’t run, Jim!” Oswald snapped, looking at him now. This was clearly a sore spot. “Not distances, anyways. Not for days. Not with my leg the way it is. I made it from my mother’s to here during the first couple of days because there weren’t as many of them then and we managed to use the car for a chunk of it. I won’t make it to the checkpoint alive.” 

Of course the limp was a problem. Many of the fears Jim had been having revolved around how it might slow Oswald down or otherwise impede his ability to escape the hungry dead. Jim didn’t accept that it meant there was no way for Oswald to escape the dead zone, though. He could not live the rest of his life confined to one building. 

“There has to be a way.” 

Oswald sighed heavily.

“It isn’t your concern, Jim. I appreciate that you are still driven to defend the weak, regardless of who they are, given the turn reality has taken. But I do not like being counted among the weak.”

“I know better than to think of you as weak.” 

“Then why the interest in my affairs? Shouldn’t you be asking whether you can have your weapon back and when you can leave?”

“I am interested, though. I…” Jim wanted to say ‘I care’, but he was worried it might get twisted around in Oswald’s head as some kind of pity. “We’ve always had an odd sort of relationship, and-“

“Don’t you dare.” His voice was low.

“Don’t I dare what?”

“Wax nostalgic about our friendship after how you ended it, even though you knew what you were to me. Or are you that poor a detective?”

“…I knew.” 

“Then why?” The question burst from Oswald like he had been holding it back for a long time. “If you were feeling guilty about coming to me for help you could have just stopped coming. Why storm into my home and outline for me exactly how little I mean to you? It isn’t as if I didn’t already know you never considered us friends. I figured that out when you almost left me for Maroni.” 

Oswald’s fingers were digging in to the plush arm of his chair so hard that Jim thought he was going to rip the fabric. He also imagined that if the chair were not serving as a convenient stand-in Oswald might be giving that same treatment to his own throat right about now. 

In hindsight Jim’s showing up to end their business relationship had been rather abrupt. The new captain was a truly honest, by the book, cop and Jim had been reminded of what he wanted to be. He had known that meant ending his dealings with The Penguin, but Oswald was right in that there had been no real need to show up and tell him. Jim had told himself it was a mixture of wanting to make sure he never got a visit from the criminal asking for a favor – as if it weren’t always Jim who did that – and owing him some kind of notice. Now Jim realized it had probably just been to see him one last time. 

“I’m sorry.”

Oswald scoffed and said nothing. 

They sat in silence until the mobster’s grip on his armrests grew lax.

“I wouldn’t think a mafia stronghold would be desperate for weapons.” Jim tried to steer the conversation back to something safer. He felt like there were other things he should be saying, and there were certainly other things he wanted to say, but it felt like a bad time. Oswald probably would not believe what he had to say, and if he did believe it then Jim would feel like he was emotionally manipulating him out of an anger he had a right to. 

There was also the fact that Oswald had said ‘what you _were_ to me’. Past tense.

Ordinarily Jim, recognizing the conversation as over, might have left the room but he was not ordinarily new in a zombie survival base he did not know whether he was welcome in.

“We aren’t desperate. My forces are well enough equipped, but supplies are always limited now and there are threats besides the dead. There is a rival group in a warehouse by the river, the warehouse where my operation stored many of our arms…They’re just young hooligans, really, but young hooligans with guns and an ‘anything goes’ attitude.” Oswald snapped up the topic change eagerly, seeming to choose to focus on his annoyance with the rival group of survivors. 

If he did not have to think as much about conserving ammunition Oswald might wipe the ‘hooligans’ out. Or he might better defend the people he had taken in off of the zombie-infested streets. 

“Is there really nobody here who wants to try for the checkpoint?” Jim asked cautiously, aware that he was steering things back towards a topic that Oswald had reacted to badly. He did not tense up again, though. He smiled.

He smiled and it was ugly. 

“I’m sure they would if they knew about the testing, but radios and batteries are also limited resources these days and we’ve put measures in place to conserve usage.”

Jim was surprised at how badly he wanted him in that moment. He supposed it would be stranger for him to be as acutely aware of Oswald’s darker aspects as he always had been and only find the bashful, softer, bits attractive. You did not fall for only parts of a person. Still, it was extremely unsettling because he did not find the things Oswald had done in his criminal career any less deplorable than he always had. He did not condone them anymore than Oswald’s lying to his people now. Wrong was wrong, but Oswald was Oswald.

Jim would not be telling him about the armoury at the precinct. 

“You won’t tell anyone, will you? It would rather disturb the harmony we’ve found here.” 

“I’m staying, then?”

“Unless you want to take your chances outside. I’m afraid you won’t be getting your gun back.”

“Alright.” Jim had not been planning on leaving anyways, at least not until he could convince Oswald to leave with him. He would not tell the truth about the testing at checkpoints and how it was now possible to leave the wasteland either, because Oswald was going to be the one to do that.

Winning Oswald’s trust back was going to be difficult, but Jim had always liked the way that having a mission ordered one’s life. 

“…I had expected more of an argument.” 

“There might be something here worth being a part of. Besides, I want to convince you to leave with me.” 

Oswald looked befuddled, like he didn’t know what to make of that statement. He looked like he was going to question it for a moment, but when he opened his mouth it was to tell him which floors of the building were ‘zoned’ residential. 

Jim left to go claim himself an empty apartment, feeling the weight of the work that lay ahead of him. Even if he could rebuild trust with Oswald, and even if Oswald did become convinced that he should lead his people out of the wasteland, there was still no guarantee that he would ever feel for Jim the way he used to. Still…

Most prisoner’s probably didn’t wake up in the ‘king’s bed in his private residence. There was a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it was explained well enough in the chapter, but since there's no Galavan in this verse Jim and Oswald's 'no more favors' talk didn't have the same pressures behind it...yes.
> 
> Anyways, this was supposed to be a one shot in which Jim found and saved a trapped/helpless Oswald. Then my brain went 'pfft, yeah right, because Oz is really SOO helpless'. So now it's going to be seven chapters and an epilogue. 
> 
> Hope you're enjoying it! =D


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim's first week at the base.

Jim made it about half-way down the first section of the staircase before he ran into Gilzean, who greeted him with a smile. “Detective Gordon. Sorry about that lump on your head, but that’s the way of the world now, eh? I was just heading up to see what the boss wants done with you, but I see he’s decided to cut you loose. Heading out?”

Gilzean’s question confused Jim because Oswald had been pretty clear that he could not have his gun back. Leaving unarmed was practically suicide. 

“Os – Cobblepot says I’m not getting my gun back, so that’s a ‘no’.” Granted, he would have probably taken his chances with the zombies unarmed if it had been anybody but Oswald ruling this base.

“Oh. Well, that’s something. I thought if you ended up staying it’d be in chains down on four.” Gilzean shrugged. 

“What’s on four?”

“Not you, apparently, so be happy about that. He tell you anything about this place?”

“Floors seven to ten are residential.”

“Yeah, basically, but nobody lives on seven. It’s sort of a common rec area, filled with all the board games and other hobby stuff we could find in the building. I’m partial to Jenga.” 

“…Right. I won’t try to find a place on seven, then.”

“You’re seriously just going to…stay. In a building controlled by the mob.”

“There is no mob anymore, or GCPD. It’s all just wasteland and people surviving in it.” 

Gilzean shrugged and accepted the answer, then started back down the stairs and gestured for Jim to follow him. As they descended he explained the building a bit better.

The apartment building, ‘The Crown’, was ritzy and refurbished, if old. It had a lobby and events room on the first floor, then eleven floors of apartments and a penthouse that was superstitiously labeled as being on the 14th floor. Oswald lived in the penthouse, the first and second floors were a fortified and restricted buffer zone between the residents of the building and the outside world, and the remaining ten floors had all been reserved for various purposes. 

The twelfth floor was where Oswald actually ran the base from, where he met with Gilzean and whatever other lieutenants he might have to discuss the management and defense of the building. The eleventh floor was an empty buffer zone between those dealings and everything else – the aged structure had very poor soundproofing. 

Floors ten, nine, eight, and seven were zoned civilian residences, although seven had become the unofficial common area. There were only three apartments on each floor, which amounted to nine residential suites. Eight was full – three couples, two of which had children. Nine housed the only apartment resident besides Oswald who had lived in the building before the outbreak, an older man who Gilzean referred to as a ‘miser’. One of the other apartments on nine was occupied by a young couple who were ‘on-again-off-again’ and Jim was warned that he might end up with an occasional roommate if he took nine’s empty suite. There only resident on ten so far was a woman called Edwige who Gilzean spoke of fondly. Jim opted to claim the apartment next to hers.

“Well then, I’ll let you settle in. Like I said we looted all the apartments already for stuff to redistribute. There’ll be a bed for sure, but you might have to ask around for a blanket,” the gangster handed over a key, warned Jim that they had copies of all the keys, and made to leave.

Jim stopped him with a question. “Really though, what’s on four? And the rest of the floors below seven? You have to live somewhere.”

“Six is where most of us who were in the business live, five is food and general storage, three is the armoury – which is locked and guarded all the time, by the way – and two and one are just too close to the world outside for anybody’s comfort. They’re empty and off limits. Four belongs to Victor and his girls.”

After Gilzean was gone Jim got to inspecting his temporary home. There was a gas fireplace, which was going to be nice since there was no central heating anymore. The building had an emergency generator, but all of its power was being conserved for the elevator in case they needed to move something heavy or Oswald needed to travel more than one or two flights in one go. The cupboards were empty, of course, since all the food would have been redistributed. There was a sofa, but the cushions had been taken by somebody. The closets looked like they had been picked over. 

The bed had sheets, but no pillows or blankets. Jim was going to have to get to know his new neighbours and the thought made him frown. He was all for ideals like community and friendliness, but in practice they were not his strong suits. 

Edwige did not have a blanket to spare, but she did offer him a few candles and a book of matches as well as a history lesson about the building which Jim payed almost no attention to. He thanked her with what he hoped looked like a genuine smile, but had probably just been an awkward upturn of his lips given the amused nature of the smile he got in return. 

Jim assumed the ‘miser’ probably wasn’t going to be somebody who would toss him a spare blanket, and the families down on eight probably needed whatever they had. Luckily Jim was saved having to ask any of them by the mercurial couple on nine who did have a blanket they kept around as a spare and did not mind giving to him. Or one of them didn’t mind, anyways… Jim left as quickly as he was able to.

The first week at The Crown went by slowly. All Jim really wanted to do was see Oswald again and try to talk him into leaving, but he knew that conversation would go nowhere right now. He had to do the work of proving to him that he only had his best interests at heart, of earning his trust, and he was happy to do that work only he could not think of where to begin. The only thing he could think of to do to score some points was to tell him about the armoury at the precinct, but he could not justify doing that when Oswald might use the additional power to crush survivor groups he considered enemies. 

There was also the fact that the next time they spoke Jim was going to have to tell Oswald what had happened with his mother. There was a good chance he was going to be angry about that, possibly angry enough to throw Jim out, but if he said nothing the secret would eat at Jim through all their future encounters. 

Although small talk and board games were not two of Jim’s favourite things he still found himself spending some time down on seven in order to better understand the way the base worked. He had also hoped he might see Oswald there, taking pleasure in the community he had founded as he had once taken pleasure from the idea of having a successful nightclub. Oswald was never there, though, as was confirmed by a young mother who approached Jim for a conversation. Once a week everyone dined together on the twelfth floor and that was the only time the civilians saw their patron, unless they requested an audience.

The mother, Nina, spoke very highly of Oswald, although she admitted to not knowing him well personally. He had provided her, her husband, and their two children with a safe place to live and that made him and his men her heroes. Her son was a hemophiliac and had no chance of surviving the world outside, even if she and her husband became very good at protecting him very quickly. He could not get the treatment he needed to manage his condition anymore and was as a result very fragile. 

Jim’s resolve to keep the truth about the checkpoints secret wavered as the smiling woman told her story. Getting the boy to a checkpoint would be difficult – they would probably have to put him in a vehicle and have a whole squad of people attempt to clear away the hordes of zombies that were attracted – but it was possible. If he could escape the region then he could get the care he needed and his mother wouldn’t have to worry that tripping over his shoelace would kill him. Jim sighed heavily and opened his mouth to offer some kind of vague hope about leaving Gotham someday. 

He was interrupted by Gilzean and the box of Jenga blocks he thumped down on the coffee table they were sitting by. The gangster shot Jim a look that said he thought he had been about to tell the secret – which meant Gilzean was not in the dark about it himself – before challenging both Jim and Nina to a game. Jim declined and excused himself.

He was not quite sure what to think about The Crown’s residents. It was clear they all thought themselves lucky to be somewhere safe from the zombies and hostile humans and looked up to Oswald as both a leader and a kind of savior. Which he was. Gilzean and Zsasz and whatever other former gangsters Oswald was still leading probably wouldn’t have stuck together as a unit without him and, if they did, they probably wouldn’t be providing a wholesome environment for somebody like Nina to care for her children. 

So long as they didn’t know escape from the wasteland was possible, though, these people couldn’t be said to be staying 100% of their own free will. There was a sense in which they were prisoners. Jim wished that telling himself he would get Oswald to come clean to them was enough to make it stop bothering him, but it wasn’t. This was a good place, a place he would have liked to see Selina and Ivy and the boys in when he thought they were all trapped, but that one lie was tainting it. 

Jim had intended to return to the room he was staying in on the tenth floor, but found himself standing outside the penthouse. He was not even entirely sure what he had to say to Oswald but he needed to say something and he certainly wasn’t going to request an audience to do so. 

The door was unlocked.

“Hello Jim.” Through the apartment Jim could see Oswald standing out on his patio, overlooking what was left of the city. He didn’t turn around. 

“How did you...?” Jim made his way outside as well. In response Oswald held up walkie-talkie. He must be in communication with Gilzean.

“You were going to tell Mrs. Jordan our secret.” Oswald actually sounded disappointed.

“No, I wasn’t. I should, though – or rather, you should.” Jim tried to keep his voice level, despite how badly this issue had actually been bothering him. When he had first woken up he had been so relieved to see Oswald alive and well that, he now realized, it had negatively affected his judgment on the issue. Taking the time to win back Oswald’s good opinion, then working on convincing him to tell his people about the checkpoints, was a plan that put his feelings for the man and the relationship he wanted them to have first. Right as that felt Jim knew that it was actually wrong and realized that he could not hide from that fact long-term. 

“And why should I, hm? You’re the one who said there was something here worth being a part of and that one little detail could tear it all apart.”

“You don’t want to leave so nobody is allowed to leave you? You didn’t have enough of playing king before all of this?” Jim’s voice was harsh now, but he could not stop that.

“Maybe! Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m so desperate to play out my monarch fantasy that I’ll trap people in an apartment building and force them to eat regularly and play board games! That must be it. Thank you detective, for opening my eyes to that.”

“I’m not saying - ! I…” Jim gripped his hair and took two deep breaths before coming to stand beside Oswald and the railing. “No, that’s exactly what I’m saying, but it’s not everything I mean. This place is amazing when you look at…the rest of it.” 

Jim gestured to the remains of Gotham they were overlooking. 

“And these people really look up to you. That’s not because you tricked them, it’s because you saved them. That doesn’t mean they owe you this.” 

They were both quiet for a moment. Somewhere out in the wasteland there was a gunshot and a few of the zombies that had been standing around in front of the building began staggering in its direction. After a while Oswald sighed and looked over at Jim, meeting his eyes.

“You’re not wrong. I like being king. That is why this place exists, and that is also why I don’t want to tell them they could leave…it isn’t why I don’t do it, though, or at least not the whole reason.”

“Tell me, Jim, these tests they conduct at the checkpoints; what do you think they’re testing for?”

“Whatever disease makes zombies. They’re making sure you haven’t been bitten.” 

“You’re half right. What most people don’t realize, though, is that you don’t have to be bitten to carry the virus. If you’re bitten you’ll get sick and turn quickly, but if the virus gets into your system some other way you can carry it for a long time with no symptoms.”

Oswald went on to explain how the doctor who had accidentally created the virus had borrowed money from his organization (Falcone’s at the time of the loan) to fund his research and how his notes had been found in the vehicle of the gangsters that had been sent to settle the debt. The professor had not known what he had created, he had been working on a disease which would attack the disease already within his child, but so long as the rules regarding transmission were as he predicted you could take in a small amount without feeling any affect while the virus lived on inside you. Oswald offered to let Jim read over the research some time, if he wanted.

“So, yes, it is possible to leave the area through a checkpoint if you aren’t a carrier, but what if you are? The journey through the city, then the suburbs, then miles of countryside would be hard enough to survive one way, and then you’d be turned around. Or worse, if they’re really hoping to eradicate the disease. I’m surprised they haven’t sent the military in yet.”

“If you allow a run to the checkpoint then people will die along the way, The Crown will be left vulnerable to that other group, and the people who do survive to see the checkpoint might be turned away anyways. Or just killed, although that sounds a bit farfetched.”

“Exactly.”

“I still think people should have the option of making their own choice.”

“You would.” Oswald gave him a fond look, like Jim was a puppy who had just done something foolish. “Anyways, Zsasz is looking into it. He and his underlings set out for the nearest checkpoint days ago and when they get back we’ll know what happens when you test positive.” 

Jim still didn’t like the idea of keeping the testing from people, but he could tolerate it knowing the larger reason behind the secrecy. If Oswald was looking into how the checkpoints were being controlled then perhaps he was already considering coming clean if it was not terrible news.

It was supposed to be Jim who was trying to earn Oswald’s trust, but Oswald was the one being totally honest with him. It was Jim’s turn now to reciprocate, and unfortunately that started with an unhappy topic.

“Listen, Oswald, there’s something I need to tell you.” Oswald seemed pleased by the use of his given name and Jim hated to ruin that when it just seemed like they might start getting along, but there was no avoiding it. “It’s about your mother. I found her in her apartment and…” Jim tried to find the words to tell the person he wanted that he had put down the remains of his mother.

“S-she had turned and was chained up, I know.” Oswald looked straight down over the railing, his face becoming even more pale than usual from the sudden onslaught of distress. “It was just the first night and we didn’t know what it was. I thought if we could restrain her there might be a way to make her better. I was going to go back for her! She bit Gabe, though, and when he died and turned I knew. But I still should have gone back, or –“

“I shot her.”

“…What?” 

“I knew that you had probably wanted her left alone, but looking at her like that I just couldn’t –“

“Thank you, Jim.” There was a look of gratitude on Oswald's face not unlike the one that used to be so common to him while in Jim's presence. “Thinking of her…like that…has weighted on me. I will sleep better tonight.” 

A question entered Oswald’s eyes then. “What were you doing in my mother’s apartment?”

This was it. Jim was going to be sharing another truth, one Oswald had been owed since the first time he had smiled at Jim and Jim had pushed away the warm feeling in his own chest and called it discomfort.

“I was there because –“

“Zsasz!”

“What?”

Oswald gestured to the ground below them where there was indeed a bald man leading a group of others towards The Crown. Some of the others had weapons pointed at them. It was hard to recognize individuals from thirteen floors up but the captives included two red-heads, one of whom was a child, another person who looked like an adolescent, and a man wearing a hat…

“Harvey?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter had so much exposition packed in. I saw the flaw in the outline but couldn't think of a way around it...
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim's friends arrive at The Crown.

It was definitely his group. It would be hard to be sure about one individual overhead from that distance, but the combination of all of them made it clear. Zsasz had captured Harvey and the others, minus the brothers and the doctor. 

“Jim…”

Jim’s confusion did not have time to morph into anything else before Oswald was grabbing his arm to turn him back towards him. His face was serious, sober, but it was the flicker of distress in his eyes that harnessed Jim’s attention. 

“Your original party, I assume. I’m sorry but they cannot – I won’t, for you –“ Oswald let go of Jim’s arm and shook his head, frowning in a way that looked frustrated. “I’m not going to make you any promises about how they’re treated here.”

Oswald stalked off back inside then and Jim heard him saying, presumably to Gilzean via the walkie, that they had business to attend to on Four. 

Had Oswald just suggested he might end up killing his friends?

Jim chased after him and caught up just as the elevator doors were closing. He stopped them with a hand and got in, raising his voice in disbelief. “You can’t possibly mean – Selina and Ivy are just children!”

Oswald said nothing. Jim swore. The rest of the ride was silent. 

The hallway on Four was the same as any other hallway Jim had seen in The Crown, aside from _feeling_ different. Maybe it was Jim’s instincts as a cop and soldier, maybe it was the knowledge that this floor was where Zsasz lived and worked, or maybe it was the present situation but Jim was bombarded with a feeling of eeriness when he stepped out of the elevator. 

“Just – Just tell me nobody is dying, Oswald!” Jim heard the desperation in his own voice. He had been about to confess his affection for this man and suddenly he was about to hurt people Jim had come to think of as family. 

Oswald stopped and faced him then, expression regretful. “Jim, I –“

“Hey boss, hey…Gordon? What’s he doing here?” Gilzean emerged from the stairwell, shooting Oswald a questioning look. Oswald’s eyes stayed fixed on Jim for a moment, but hardened at the interruption. 

“I have to preserve my authority and protect this community. I won’t make any promises.”

“Victor has brought guests home.” Oswald was speaking to Gilzean now. “Detective Gordon will be greeting them with us.” 

Jim felt much, though not all, of his panic die. Oswald would not bring him along if he planned to hurt his friends, and neither would he have reacted as he had begun to to Jim’s fears that he would. This did not mean that there was no danger. Oswald was certainly not about to have the girls and Harvey shot, but he also was not about to allow them to stay and spread his secret. If they were allowed to leave it would probably be unarmed, as seemed to be protocol at The Crown. Anything more would be seen as weakness in the eyes of his men. Walking into the streets with no means of defense was almost certain death, though, so Jim was going to have to find a way that Oswald could release them, and their supplies, and still save face. 

The living room of the apartment they entered was devoid of anything besides a dining table. Pooled under the table there were a series of chains with cuffs which appeared to be just long enough to run under the table and hold somebody’s arms or legs spread out over it. Harvey, Selina, Scottie, and Ivy were all sitting in dining chairs along one side of the table while Zsasz sat on it, grinning. The women Jim recognized as his accomplices were standing off to the sides, weapons drawn. 

“I was just about to call.” Zsasz hopped off the table and Jim noticed a third walkie-talkie had been sitting beside him. “We found these near the checkpoint.”

“That’s a long way to travel with prisoners.” Oswald replied.

Jim studied his friends and found them all mostly unharmed, aside from some bruises and scrapes. Harvey managed to smile weakly at him, Scottie didn't bother trying, and Ivy was glaring at him as if he were at fault for her current situation. Selina had no reaction at all and actually looked slightly bored with the whole thing, which Jim knew better than to buy into. 

“I didn’t _want_ to take prisoners. I said we’d leave them alone if they dropped their guns, and they shot first. I was going to kill them, but after we got the upper hand Bullock started talking about the checkpoint. Seems they were there and tried to get through. Figured you’d want that report.” 

“And we got no problem giving it. Anything you want to know, we got the whole scoop. We’ll tell you everything, and then you give us our stuff back and we hit the road. Sound good? I mean, we’re practically in-law –“ Harvey’s negotiation was cut off when he noticed Jim shake his head quickly. His partner had apparently thought things with Oswald had gone far better for Jim than they actually had, which was not a terrible assumption given that Jim had just walked in with him to see prisoners. Harvey had probably seen him and thought they were saved. “In _our_ law _ful_ rights not to –“ Harvey was saved from his own lame attempts at recovery by Selina kicking him in the shin from where she sat beside him.

“Don’t tell them anything.” Jim stated, taking a step towards the table and his friends. “If he kept you alive it means that Zsasz didn’t learn anything himself. Oswald wants this information bad enough to send some of his best people to get it and once you turn it over you’ve got nothing.”

“Why is he here?” Zsasz frowned deeply. 

“He’d have made a bigger nuisance of himself if I hadn’t let him come, believe it or not.” Which was true. If he had not been invited along Jim would have resorted to violence and recklessness before letting his surrogate family’s fate be decided without him there. 

“But why is he here _at all_?”

“Butch found him at one of the sentry posts about a week ago.” If Zsasz didn’t already know that then that meant that he had already been gone when Jim arrived. He had not even been in the building when Oswald had used him as a threat. “In any case, Jim, I hope you see the flaw in the advice you’re giving your friends. It is true that once they give me the report I won’t need them anymore, but if they insist on keeping quiet then they’re no use to me anyways. Why should I keep them alive?”

Oswald’s tone was both calm and threatening, but Jim still heard it as a request for help. He wanted Jim to give him a reason. What could he give Oswald that would be seen as a fair trade in the eyes of his men?

“I lied about the armoury at the precinct.”

Oswald did not look surprised, or react at all.

“There’s guns, flare guns, riot gear – even some confiscated explosives we took out of the evidence room. It’s all locked away in a walk-in safe and you won’t get in without the combination.” 

“So now there are two pieces of information standing between your friends and uselessness.”

“We’re not going to pay you off with the combo.” Selina spoke up, understanding where Jim was going. “You’re going to give us back our stuff and send some of your goons to help us get back to our base. Then, if we feel like it, we’ll talk and share some guns.” 

“Your men will be allowed to raid the armoury and Zsasz will be given the report about the checkpoint once my group is back at the precinct.” Jim rephrased what Selina had said. Oswald needed to ‘win’. 

“We will take enough that you could never be a threat to The Crown.”

“Then how would we know you wouldn’t just wipe us out after the trade?” Harvey spoke up.

Oswald smiled. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

It was decided that Jim’s group would stay on Four for the night – Oswald could not risk them coming in contact with the civilians in the building – and that them, along with Gilzean and a couple of his men, would set out first thing in the morning. Jim was a bit surprized that it would be Gilzean and not Zsasz that would be accompanying them (should things go wrong Oswald would be left with only one lieutenant whose underlings were more loyal to him than Oswald).

Although Jim was told he could spend the night in his own rooms he chose to stay locked up with the others in the empty master bedroom in the apartment on Four. There were chains installed on the walls, but nobody was restrained.

Jim was eager to catch up with the others: to find out what had happened at the checkpoint, and ask where the brothers and the doctor were (not that it was hard to guess). 

Ivy wanted nothing to do with Jim, aside from making sure he knew he was dead to her. She had become important to Jim in part because that is what happens when you survive alongside somebody, and also because he felt that himself and Harvey shared responsibility for her ending up on the streets. He could not claim to know the girl well and they had never had a warm relationship, but they had been making progress and she might never forgive him for leaving just as she was starting to let him in. Jim tried to tell himself he would make it up to her somehow, but a part of him knew that was unlikely to happen. 

Ivy went to a far corner of the room to sit by herself while Jim, Scottie, and Harvey sat in a circle near the centre of the room. Selina busied herself with inspecting the few things in the room there were to inspect. Being locked up was probably a bit harder on her that the rest of them because she was so used to coming and going as she pleased, even since the city had fallen. 

“Alright, let’s kick some elephants out of the room.” There was no beating around the bush with Scottie, no bullshit. “You should have said goodbye to all of us, it wasn’t fair to put that on Harvey.”

“I know, it wasn’t really planned, I just -”

“Number two: your boyfriend is sort of a cute little psycho, but the important word there is still psycho.” It seemed like Harvey had told everyone why he had left.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” 

“Seriously? He turned you down? I’ve seen the way Penguin looks at you – his tiny black heart beats for you.” Harvey’s eyebrows were raised skeptically. 

“He didn’t tell him.” Selina, who had apparently been following the conversation, had stopped her pacing around the room to stare judgmentally at Jim. Harvey let out a sigh.

“You came to your senses? God that’s a relief, I –“

“No, he just wussed out.”

“I did not.“ Jim grimaced at Harvey’s hopeful expression. “I mean I didn’t tell him, but I didn’t – I’m getting to it!”

This conversation was just too odd and Jim needed it to be over.

“Way to focus on the wrong part of my sentence, everyone.” Scottie sighed in a way that said they were moving on and Jim was grateful. “Last elephant…”

Scottie reached out to Jim and squeezed his hand. “We’ve all missed you and we’re glad to find you healthy.” 

They exchanged small smiles and Harvey squeezed his shoulder. Jim let himself enjoy that moment before he ended it – he had to know about their missing group members.

“I’m glad to see you all okay too, but…”

Harvey shook his head. “The boys are fine, we think, but Doc didn’t make it to the suburbs.”

“What do you mean ‘we think’?”

“Well, they made it through the checkpoint, but –“

Selina, who had been walking behind Harvey as he was speaking, paused to tilt his hat over his face and hold it there for a second. “Don’t tell him about the checkpoint.” 

“Why shouldn’t we?” Scottie asked while Harvey fixed his hat and tried to spit out hair that had been pushed into his mouth. “Jim wouldn’t have turned against us, Selina.”

“He’s not against them either, though, is he? Jim knows the combination, only we know about the checkpoint. We can’t have Penguin’s guys thinking the boss’s crush is the only one that needs to survive tomorrow.”

“Point.” Harvey conceded after getting the situation on his head back under control. “Also, the walls are thin in these old buildings. Zsasz could be listening.” 

The three adults spent some more time talking, mostly reminiscing about the doctor. Selina gave up trying to find anything entertaining in the room and went to sit with Ivy. After whispering together for a while the girls fell asleep sitting up, backs against the wall and heads resting against each other. The three grown-ups were not far behind, Jim off to one side of the room using his jacket as a pillow and Scottie and Harvey in the middle of the floor. The couple was not exactly cuddling, but they were close and facing each other. In her sleep Scottie had reached over and grabbed a fist full of Harvey’s shirt, and he had responded by sleepily gripping her hand and holding it there. 

As he drifted into sleep Jim thought about how he had never been jealous of a couple before. He wondered if he and Oswald would ever have something like that, something stable and pure and not weighed down with lies and moral dilemmas. That night Jim had a dream that he and Oswald were on a double date with Scottie and Harvey. The four of them were trying to eat at a fancy restaurant, but the room was full of elephants that kept scooping their food up in their trunks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited to be finished writing this chapter because now I can go read fics that have been posted since I started writing it!


	5. Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and the crew head for the precinct.

Gilzean woke them up early, pounding loudly on the door before swinging it open. Waiting at Zsasz’s repurposed torture table were the two men Gilzean would be bringing along, plus chairs for everyone and two boxes of cheerios. They ate dry cereal and discussed the day ahead, which roads were better or worse. They agreed that it would probably be two days of walking so they picked out a building to take cover in overnight, one which The Crown had actually used as a sentry post at one time before deciding it was too far out. Once they had eaten and planned out their route it was time to go. Gilzean had brought in everyone’s bags and weapons, including Jim’s own seemingly unsearched bag. He and his men had come to Four prepared. There was no reason to dawdle. 

Jim was not sure why he had thought Oswald would come say goodbye. He didn’t. Once they had started off, though, Jim looked back at The Crown and saw a dark figure watching them from the penthouse balcony.

The first half of the day was easy and they made excellent time. They did not run into many large enough groups of zombies that they were forced to engage and, when they did, the fighting was easy because they had a lot of people. They were well ahead of schedule when they reached the building they had planned to spend the night in and made the decision to continue on past it. They had more than half the day left. 

While they walked they settled into a sort of ease, the surrounding death having become old hat by that point. Jim was mostly quiet, but an extravagant cocktail dress in a shop window somehow got Gilzean, Harvey, and Selina onto the topic of Fish Mooney. Jim had not previously gotten the impression that Harvey and Gilzean liked each other, but they did seem to enjoy swapping Fish stories. Selina listened with interest and seemed pleased when Gilzean said that Fish had loved her. 

The three of them had apparently known the woman in a different way than Jim had. 

Ivy was also less silent than she had been the previous day, although it took a lot of prompting from Scottie to draw her into a conversation. Still, Scottie had been a counselor and getting people to open up was one of her strengths. The two of them only talked about safe things like finding some plants to keep in the precinct once they were settled back in, but Ivy seemed happier for it than she had been the previous day. 

They were about an hour past the place they had planned to spend the night when they ran into the herd. 

These things happened, now. One or two zombies really were not a big deal, even if you were unarmed, because they were slow and had no ability to navigate obstacles. Evading them was not hard. Anything more than ten, or even as few as five, would be an issue depending on how much space you had to move in. You would not necessarily need to engage all of them (unless clearing zombies from around your base was your intention), but you would need to cut a path. You were almost certain to run into these situations moving around the city and that is why leaving shelter unarmed was suicide. 

Herds were a different animal. There was no clearing out a herd, no cutting a path through it. You ran for the nearest safe spot, you waited quietly, and you prayed they didn’t notice you. Doors that kept out one or two zombies fell easily to a herd. 

They did not see the herd from a safe distance; it was only about half a block away when they rounded a corner. Everyone turned and ran as a unit back the way they had come, glancing around desperately for a safe place to take cover. Selina jumped up a fire escape before firing off a flare, which distracted a handful of zombies long enough that they were knocked over and trampled by others but did not truly buy them any time. 

The nearest building was locked and they did not have much time to plan.

“We just have to run, and keep on running until we find something.” Jim said, wondering if there was any chance of them running all the way to the safe building they had passed earlier.

“Alright kiddo, hop on.” Harvey intended to piggyback Ivy through the threat, but that could end with her slowing him down and both of them being lost. They did not have much time – less than a minute – but it would be enough to get Ivy to Selina. 

“Run!” Jim yelled at the other adults while roughly grabbing Ivy’s arm and pulling her with him. He did not look back to see how they responded. 

“Selina!”

“I can’t get the ladder down!”

“Just take her!”

Jim grabbed Ivy around her waist and held her up enough that Selina could grab her hands and help her get a hold of the railing. Ivy was safe. 

Jim was not. 

There was a groan from behind Jim’s left ear and he turned just in time to dodge the first zombie of the herd as it reached for him. He drew his weapon quickly and put it down, but others were coming and there were too many in-between him and the rest of the group. He would need to make a run for the ally that went in the opposite direction. He shot a few of the closer zombies, and Selina and Ivy tried to provide cover, but as he arrived at the mouth of the alley and turned to run he felt a dead hand wrap around the top of his right arm and heard a garbled hiss from close behind. There was a moment where he knew he was done for, and then the hand was suddenly gone and he was being roughly shoved forward. 

Although he carried a gun, Gilzean’s weapon of choice for dealing with zombies was a metal baseball bat. It seemed as though he had wacked, kicked, and shoved his way through the beginnings of the herd to get to Jim and had arrived just in time. How he had managed it and why he would even try would be questions for later. For now, the two of them took off running down the narrow alley. 

Normally narrow spaces were to be avoided. Two zombies were no issue on the open road, but they were if they were on either side of you in an enclosed space. The skinniness of the alley actually worked in their favor in this instance, though. Jim and Gilzean were forced to run single-file, and so were the zombies. The herd was now a series of individuals. 

The narrow alley fed into a wider back alley. Being faster than the zombies, Jim and Gilzean had a bit of time to think. Gilzean tried to push a dumpster near the opening and could not alone, but waved Jim over to help. The two of them got the mouth of the smaller alley plugged, although not before a zombie had made it through. Jim shot it and then the two of them were on their way. After a while the force of enough lined up zombies staggering at it might make the dumpster budge, but they would be long gone by then.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t.”

When they reached the street Jim turned in the direction they would need to go to meet up with Harvey and Scottie again, but Gilzean stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“This is the way the others were headed.”

“It’s also the way the rest of the herd was headed, and you know how that goes.” Either they made it to safety or they were already dead. “We’re going to find the closest place we can to squat for the night and head for the precinct tomorrow.”

Jim hesitated.

“Come on Gordon, I just saved your life. Do I need to knock you upside the head again?”

There was a salon nearby they could get into because the glass front door had been smashed. Although the salon itself was only one room they had a large walk-in closet meant for storing customer’s coats, and the closet door had a working lock. It was as good as they were going to find, and there were even a couple abandoned coats to help keep them warm. They did not seem to do much good, but Jim told himself it would be worse without them.

“So, Penguin says you’ll be staying with your friends.”

“No.” Jim realized that Oswald, and Gilzean, must think he was really only staying at The Crown because they wouldn’t give him his bag or gun back. “I’m going ba-“

“The boss says you’ll be staying with your friends. It ain’t a question.”

Oswald didn’t want him around. It hit Jim like a slap in the face. He had known he was angry about the way Jim had ended their business relationship – their friendship, to Oswald – and he knew having somebody around pestering you to share secrets was not ideal. Jim was not sure whether Oswald felt for him as he once had, but there had been a million little signs telling him that he was still significant to the mobster in some way. Waking up in his bed, being trusted not to tell his secret, the gratitude for giving mercy to his mother, the reluctance to hurt people who were important to him…Had Jim been reading too much into things? He felt stupid…

“He told me to tell you that, but _you_ don’t have to listen to him and I won’t be around to make you.”

Gilzean looked sweaty. It was Gotham in the late fall – it was freezing – but Gilzean looked like they were sitting in a sauna. 

“You were bit.” 

Gilzean nodded and held aside his jacket so Jim could see where the fabric, and skin, covering his torso had been broken by a zombie’s teeth.

“You’d have been fine if you didn’t help me. Why?”

“You’re not great at gratitude are you?”

“Why, Gilzean?”

“Boss’s orders.”

“So?”

“So it wasn’t my call.” Gilzean’s face twitched oddly.

Jim wondered what had been done to Butch Gilzean that would make him throw away his life for a cop he didn’t even like. He noted that the scar on his forehead could be seen as a ‘V’ and felt sick.

“When I go it’ll be up to you to…you know.” 

“I know.”

Butch – he did not want to be referred to by his surname on his deathbed – started talking then, mostly about The Crown. He gave him more details about the residents and reminisced about the early days of setting the place up. Oswald had not built the base alone. Butch shared in the work, and shared in the feeling of ownership if not in actual ownership. He cared about the place. That’s why he was telling Jim things like how Mr. Franklin, the miser, needed to be humored when he made noise complaints. 

“Just in case you do go back. None of my guys who are still around are really leadership material, and I doubt you’ll be satisfied staying a civilian.”

Butch’s voice started getting weaker, and then he stopped talking aside from occasional mutterings about cornfields. His last words, breathed out as his glassy eyes suddenly focused on a spot somewhere to the left of Jim, sounded like ‘sorry Fish I…’ and then he closed his eyes closed and his breathing slowed. Jim ended it quickly and spent the rest of the night awake, trying not to look at Butch’s body and waiting eagerly until the time he could start pushing the memory out of his head.

What had happened to Butch that resulted in his life ending this way? Jim was not actually sure he wanted to know, but he did not think he would be able to stop himself from bringing it up. Because he was definitely going back to The Crown. Oswald could kick him out to his face if that’s what he wanted to do. 

In the morning Jim started off towards the precinct. He had a shorter walk ahead of him than they had the day before and made it by around noon, having only minor run-ins with zombies. Selina and Ivy were already there, and had in fact arrived the previous evening as planned. Jim shared with them his own story from the day before, including why Butch was no longer with him.

Selina and Ivy had seen Harvey and Scottie round a corner with a fair lead on the herd, which was thinned considerably because so many had either chased him and Butch or lingered by the fire escape trying to reach up to the girls. They had reason to hope. 

Selina went up to what had been the captain’s office to keep watch. Jim settled down in his old desk chair, which had been brought down to their makeshift fire pit. He was not going to get any sleep, not until he knew Harvey and Scottie were alive, but there was nothing he could do at the moment besides sit and wait. He wanted to go out and look for them, but there was no way to know where they would have taken cover. 

Jim was not good at sitting and waiting, so he was only in the chair for about a minute before he was standing again and looking for something to occupy himself. Ivy was busying herself with something up on the second level and he went to join her. 

“The desk needs to be by the window.” Ivy was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She looked up from the paper she was focused on and gestured to a cleared-off desk that had been Harvey’s. It seemed like, in light of yesterdays’ events, she was speaking to him again. Jim was looking for a distraction so he wasted no time in moving the desk. 

“What are you planning?”

“A garden. The plants can live up here, so they can get sun.” The lower level windows were all boarded up. “I’m making a list of what we’ll need to take care of them.” 

“Right, you and Scottie were talking about that yesterday.”

“You were listening to us.” She glared at him from behind a curtain of ginger hair, although it was only one of her normal dirty looks and not the truly toxic one she had been giving him at The Crown. 

“Uh…” Was getting flowers a private thing?

Ivy looked back down at her paper. “You’re leaving again, because you like that man that walks funny more than us.”

“Not ‘more’, Ivy, just –“

“ _Different_ , I know. Like how Cat likes Bruce Wayne, even though she says she doesn't. She went to find him first, you know. All the way out to his big fancy house before she remembered he’s in Switzerland.” 

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“It’s stupid. I’m never going to like anybody like that.” 

Jim wondered how it had fallen to him to explain to a very disturbed little girl that romantic feelings were a good thing. He had a feeling speaking from his own experience would make it sound worse than she already thought it was. Besides, if there was no outbreak and something else had forced him to confront what he felt for Oswald he probably would have decided it didn’t matter anyways because it just wasn’t right, although it was more likely he would have just ignored it forever. He had not exactly been open to letting himself fall in love and had only changed his mind because everything else had already changed. So, Jim said nothing and turned to go back downstairs.

“They sorted us and made us go into different tents. Cat was by herself, Joe and Roy were together, and they put me with Scottie and Harvey.”

Jim turned back towards the girl and listened as she told the rest of the story about the checkpoint. It was probably her way of thanking him for helping her the day before.

They divided them into family groups at the checkpoint so that Selina ended up on her won, the brothers were together, and Ivy was assumed to be Harvey and Scottie’s daughter because they were all gingers. They had said it was for efficiency. Based on what happened, though, Jim thought it was more likely that they just did not want any witnesses besides those who would raise an issue regardless of if they were witnesses or not. If they told you your friend was turned away you would be upset, but you were more likely to accept it and get on with your life than if you were told your daughter was being sent back into the wasteland.

Those who tested positive were not sent back into the wasteland, though, which Ivy knew first hand. She didn’t understand how she had tested positive because she had not been bitten, and based on the defensive way she crossed her arms during this part of the story she was terrified of what it might mean. Jim felt self-centered for assuming her sour mood before had been completely about himself. He cut into the story to try assuring her that being a carrier did not mean she was going to turn, and even told her about the research papers Oswald had. Some tension left the girl at that and she continued with the story.

In the tent with Scottie and Harvey, Scottie had been tested first and was negative. Ivy was tested next and when the positive result came back the nurse looked sad and told all three of them they would need to go to a containment facility for further testing. They protested that Ivy had not been bitten and were ignored. Harvey asked to be tested himself and the nurse saw no point in that anymore, now that his 'daughter' had tested positive. 

The nurse, and the men with guns who had suddenly joined him, did not care about their protests that there must be something wrong with the test. The nurse stopped talking about the containment facility and started talking about how important it was that this disease die out. Ivy had not really been paying close attention to all of that, though, because she had already decided she was not going to any kind of facility. She ran towards the door they had come in and, she was told afterwards, one of the guards actually aimed his gun at her as she fled. The only reason he didn’t fire was because Harvey tackled him. Ivy did not know the details of the rest of the struggle, but Harvey and Scottie had both looked worse for wear when they caught up to her. 

Selina and the boys had already made it through the checkpoint fine, but when Selina saw them fleeing back into the dead zone she had climbed up a jeep and jumped over the barbed wire to rejoin them under the assumption that something terrible must be going on.

Jim doubted they were executing everyone who was a carrier along with their families, but the thought occurred to Jim that the government might not know you could be a carrier without turning and assume everyone who tested positive was a zombie waiting to happen. Killing the carrier would seem like the only option, then, unless there was research being done on carriers or something. In any case they had been more willing to shoot Ivy than to let her stay in Gotham.

Jim thanked Ivy for sharing the story and made further assurances that she would be alright. It was around then that Selina called to them that she had spotted Scottie, Harvey, and Butch’s two underlings heading their way. Everyone was happily reunited, aside from the gangsters who were quite put out about Butch’s absence. 

With Harvey and Scottie save Jim let his thoughts turn back to Oswald. Soon, Jim would be back at The Crown. He would tell Oswald about the checkpoint and get Oswald to explain why Butch had died for him. They would discuss whether to share information with the civilians, and if Oswald was really trying to kick Jim out. They would get to all of it and then, when there was finally nothing else in the way, Jim would tell Oswald exactly how important he was to him regardless of how the rest of it was going to play out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels a bit awkward writing relationships Jim doesn't actually have in canon (i.e with Ivy and Scottie), so I hope that's coming off okay.


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim arrives back at The Crown and starts carving out a life.

The journey back from the precinct was longer than the journey there because there were only three of them, they had cargo, and they were being extra cautious in case the herd was still along their route. They stretched it into three days, despite protests from one of the two gangsters that they should try to be quick. There had also been protests that they should be demanding food and other supplies from the precinct group in addition to the weapons, and that Jim should not be the only one who got to know ‘the intel’ (the grunts were not actually told the nature of the information), as well as a lot of general whining about how Jim was not the boss of them.

Jim suspected that the reason they ultimately fell in line was because their actual boss was Oswald and he was terrifying to work for. With Butch gone they no longer had a buffer between them and him. If they let Jim lead, then he was the one who had to break bad news (like the loss of Butch) to the boss and take responsibility for anything that might still go wrong. If they were forced to abandon their industrial laundry hamper full of guns (once used to transport the sheets used by the M.E) and go back empty handed it would be Jim’s fault. 

As it was nothing else did go wrong and they arrived back at The Crown about an hour before sunset on their third day. A guard stationed down on the main level radioed up and they were instructed to take the weapons to the armoury on the third floor, where they would wait for Zsasz.

Jim followed half of the instruction, leaving both the weapons and the grunts on Three while he continued upwards. Ten floors is a long way to climb, especially after days of walking, and Jim cycled through a few different motivators as he trudged up the stairs.

One was anger. Butch Gilzean had died for him, and it had not been of his own choosing. He might not have even had the ability to choose. Jim wanted answers.

There was also the fact that he had just delivered a lot of weapons to somebody who might be inclined to use them on people. He needed to pick Oswald’s brain about that as soon as possible, make sure he wasn’t planning any attacks. Jim had told himself through the trek from the precinct that this needed to be the first thing he did when he got back.

He knew as he got closer, though, that he was not forcing his tired body up ten stories of staircases for Butch or the faceless ‘hooligans’ Oswald might want to kill. He could have died on the way to the precinct and never have seen the other man again, never told him what he felt for him. He was rushing up to see Oswald for the sake of seeing Oswald and there was no way around that.

The penthouse door was locked, so Jim knocked this time. 

“Who is it?!” Oswald sounded like he was in a foul mood.

“Me.”

“Jim!”

Jim heard a shuffle of papers and then frantic footsteps. When Oswald opened the door he was smiling as if he had not ordered Butch to leave Jim behind. The expression fell quickly. “I thought you would stay with Detective Bullock and your other friends.”

“They’ll do fine without me.”

Jim thought Oswald would invite him in to get the report, but he seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation. This was not how Jim had wanted to tell him, but it was time. Oswald should know why he was here.

“I came back for you.” 

Oswald’s eyes widened considerably and Jim could not tell if it was in disbelief or confusion or some other emotion. He said nothing. Jim felt awkward. 

“I was never separated from my group, I left them to go looking for you.”

Oswald shook his head and limped back into his apartment. Jim followed, heart sinking. Oswald was neither telling him to leave nor accepting what he said and he did not know what to do.

“Early on I only looked once, that’s why I was at your mom’s. I should have searched more, sooner, but –“

“Stop talking, Jim.” Oswald slumped into a chair, resting his head briefly in his hands. “Just stop. Where’s Butch?”

To say that Jim was confused was an understatement. He had had reasons to think Oswald would accept him, and reasons to think he might reject him, but it had never entered his mind that the man might just refuse to hear him out. Here they were, though – Jim trying to say that he cared and Oswald trying to change the subject before he could get it out. 

This made Jim angry because he had struggled with this revelation. He had felt longing and refused to give it a face, and he had resented himself for an inappropriate attraction he would not even admit to. Then, when everything else in the world had fallen away and he could finally see what he felt for Oswald, see that it was one of very few things that were actually important, he had endured the fear that his epiphany had come too late. He had thought Oswald could be dead. Now he knew there was a chance he had gotten over him. He still had to try, though, and Oswald was not even going to let him say his piece?

“Really Jim, before you say something you’re going to regret. Where’s Butch?” Oswald sounded tired and annoyed – Jim’s anger probably showed on his face. 

Oswald was looking at Jim like he really could not take his continuing with the topic he had been on so, although his frustration did not actually fade, he could not find it in himself to insist. Instead he sat in a chair opposite Oswald and allowed the subject change, for the moment.

“Gilzean is dead.”

“Well now, that is a shame. How?” Oswald sighed, but did not actually sound any more upset than if the corpse in question belonged to an acquaintance’s dog.

“There was a herd. One of them was on me, but Gilzean pushed his way back through them and got to me in time. He got bitten on his way. I stopped him from turning.” Oswald nodded to this as if it were all very satisfactory. Although Jim had never seen Butch as much more than a thug while he was alive, now that he had died for him Jim felt like he deserved better from somebody he had worked as closely with as Oswald. “…Before he passed he said what he did wasn’t ‘his call’, and I can buy that because Butch didn’t even like me. He would not risk his life for me of his own will.”

“No, that was my will. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that, of course, but – oh, really Jim, don’t look so outraged! You’re alive and I don’t care how. Your judgment is wasted.” 

Jim scoffed and turned his judgement inwards for a moment because, while he really did think Butch Gilzean had been dealt an unfair hand, he was actually still more put out about how Oswald had changed the subject. Somebody had died for him and he was more interested in getting the man who had forced him to to…what? Be his boyfriend? Something about that sounded so callous and juvenile. Jim wished he cared more. 

“Before he passed Gilzean also said you wanted me to stay with my friends.” Jim tried and failed to keep the note of accusation out of his voice.

“I had believed that was what you wanted.”

“If you thought I was staying anyways why bother ordering it?”

“So you knew it was what I wanted too.” 

“Is it?”

Oswald glared at Jim from under dark bangs, took a deep breath as if to calm himself, and stood to walk to a tall, narrow, bookshelf by the wall. Jim waited, deciding to give him a moment if that’s what he needed to –

_CRASH!_

A book smashed through a wine decanter that had been sitting out on a table. Oswald threw several more books in his rage and wound up knocking over the bookshelf. He still had one heavy book in hand when he turned back to face Jim and for a moment Jim was positive it was going to come flying at his head. It didn’t, but the words Oswald sent his way hit just as hard.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Oswald, I –“

“No, you don’t. You think you do. That’s why you came back, right? Now that there’s nothing else to care about you’ve decided you care about me.”

Jim wanted to argue with that, to say that he had always care and just couldn’t see it, but it the words tasted wrong. He still tried. “It’s not that I just suddenly decided to care now, I –“

“Oh, so it’s more like you chose not to care before?”

That sounded true. That was what Jim had been doing when he pushed aside every spark of feeling or desire the other man had inspired in him. Emotions that were denied did not count for anything; he had chosen not to care. 

“I tried to do that too, you know? I have loved you from the very beginning, and at first it was wonderful and I didn’t even let myself dwell on how we would never be more than friends because that was enough. I loved you, you tolerated me, and it wasn’t until you showed you were willing to let me die that I realized how pathetic I was to be satisfied with that. Then I tried not to care. I tried so hard, Jim.” 

Oswald dropped the book he was holding, his anger spent. Nothing replaced it. The look he was giving Jim now was just empty. 

“I thought it worked, that I could just have a business relationship with you and it wouldn’t mean anything. I got you your job back, you collected a debt. Just business. I actually fooled myself into thinking you had lost your ability to hurt me, and then…”

“I told you we were done professionally.” Jim stood, but did not quite approach Oswald. He seemed to have calmed down, but his mood could turn on a dime. “I felt like I needed to…I didn’t. I’m sorry.” 

“I know,” Oswald scoffed. “But I don’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t understand.” 

“Of course you don’t, this is new for you.” Oswald actually took steps back towards him now, his voice almost pleading. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore, Jim, not even if you say it’s requited. I gave up on you already. Gave up on _anything_ from you. But I still just look at you, or hear your voice, and…”

Oswald stopped walking, so Jim closed the distance. Embracing him seemed wrong given what he was saying, but Jim couldn’t stop himself from touching him. He reached out and held Oswald’s face in his hands, turning his head so they were looking at each other.

“I need you to let me move on.”

“I can’t do that.” 

“I could have you thrown out.” 

“You won’t.” He could have done that when he first arrived and he had not, although Jim now thought he had probably planned to. He had said he expected Jim to fight harder to get his gun back and he had probably planned to give it to him after toying with him for a while. That's why Butch had thought he was on his way out when he had first seen him that day. 

“No. But I wish I would.”

Oswald brought his hands up to cover Jim’s and Jim could not tell if being this close felt good or painful to him. To Jim it would have been everything, if he were not quite so aware that Oswald was an unwilling party to their bond. 

“I want you to be happy, Oswald. I want to make you happy. Just tell me what to do.” 

Oswald actually laughed, although it was far from a joyful sound. “This isn’t real.”

“Anything. Anything except leave you.” 

“I…I don’t know.” Oswald stepped back then and Jim had to stop himself from following. 

“We’ll figure it out.” 

After a few moments they both sat down again and Jim made himself give the full details on the weapons they had brought back, as well as the report about the checkpoint and how Oswald was probably right about carriers being treated badly and possibly killed. Oswald explained a bit more about the situation with the ‘hooligans’, whose more official name was the ‘Gotham River Crew’ or GRC. The GRC had apparently taken to destroying buildings by the waterfront, which sounded stupid to Jim. An urban centre was probably the worst place to be these days because of the number of zombies and the only silver lining was that there were lots of places to take cover. The sounds of the explosions also attracted more of the dead to the area, which the GRC had noticed. They had started looking outside of their own area for targets and had tried to take down a building somewhat close to The Crown a while back. They were stopped, which they had found very offensive. Now they had made it a mission to encroach on Oswald’s territory. They always had to be watching now for parties of hooligans trying to sneak into their territory and blow things up. 

The conversation about the hooligans was sober and unemotional on both sides and afterwards Jim went back down to his apartment on the tenth floor. 

-

The next week was spent integrating himself into Oswald’s forces. Butch had been right; Jim could not stand to spend his days chatting with the neighbours on the recreational floor. He had also been right in that none of his remaining grunts were leadership material. Zsasz had complete obedience from his own squad, but not many were willing to follow him directly who were not already. It was best to think of Zsasz’s group as their own separate unit; they did not mix well with the others. So, by the end of that week, Jim was the new Butch.

Not all of Butch’s old underlings accepted it easily, and Oswald did not officially appoint him to the position. He did accept Jim’s daily visits to give him reports, though, and singled him out for input at the official meetings on Twelve. At first this only served to make those who did not want to follow Jim resent him more, but there was an event near the end of the week that changed that. 

Jim was out with two of Butch’s underlings, along with Zsasz and two of his people. They were in two groups of three so they could split up and check nearby buildings faster. Jim’s party had found something, a scruffy young man with a mullet and a nose ring. The grunts recognized him as a member of the GRC. 

They detained him and questioned him, but got no answers. One of the grunts wanted to just kill him, and the other thought they needed to call Zsasz over to get real information. Jim held them off, although he did try to play up the arrival of a torturer to scare him. It did not work, and it was clear the ex-gangsters thought he was being weak for refusing to act more harshly. Then Zsasz and his people did arrive, with the body of a second hooligan who they had killed when the man tried to run. This seemed to get under the living hooligan’s skin, but he still wasn’t quite ready to crack.

Then there were zombies, six of them. Zsasz took out three almost immediately and the situation was easily controlled, but it was enough of a distraction that the prisoner felt it was worth his effort to run. Jim was not having that. He had already been coming around to Harvey’s methods of interrogation before the city fell and, while it did not make him feel proud, he could admit now that sometimes threatening to throw a perp out a window was necessary. Jim didn’t have a window, though…

He shot the fleeing youth in the foot and walked after him, grabbing one of the remaining zombies by the back of its shirt on his way. Jim pushed the zombie on top of the fallen prisoner and held its head just a bit out of biting range of his face while the man screamed. 

“I’m going to ask you one more time!”

They got a lot of valuable intel that day about the GRC’s operation and leadership, and more in the days to come. The prisoner was taken to Four for Zsasz and his people to question further. Butch’s underlings started really accepting Jim as his replacement after that. It also helped that he seemed to have Zsasz’s unofficial endorsement for the position after the incident (he had found the whole thing very entertaining). Zsasz started looking to him as the representative of the forces which were not his own, and everybody could see that. 

Jim did not feel good about what had happened with the prisoner. He privately thought he had crossed a line by using the zombie, but the results had all been positive for his position at The Crown. 

“You seem to be fitting in.” Oswald commented at the end of his daily report a few days later. Jim had tried a few times to turn the reports into real conversations, to forge a more personal relationship with his new boss. Oswald had shut him down every time. 

“I’ve found my niche, I think.”

“As lieutenant to a mafia king in what is essentially a turf war?”

“There are a lot of innocent people living here, I’m not just doing this for –“

“Me?” Oswald was actually grinning, amused.

“…No, yeah, I am.” 

Oswald was pleased in a way Jim thought should bother him, except that it meant Oswald was smiling and how could that ever bother him?

“We can’t just keep catching them in the act forever.” As much as Jim would rather keep the conversation personal, there was something he needed to get out. “And I think they may be planning a more traditional attack.”

“You think we should launch a pre-emptive strike? Excellent.” Oswald rather cheerfully folded the map in front of him and set it to the side.

Jim realized that Oswald had been waiting for him to bring up the idea of an offensive move against the GRC since they’d brought back the weapons. “You’ve been waiting for me to bring it up so you could be sure I wouldn’t think of it as a slaughter.”

“I also needed more information, but our guest down on Four has been quite helpful towards that end. Thank you for that.”

“It’s important to you that I approved before you move on the GRC?” Jim was a bit baffled that his opinion on such things mattered now when Oswald had recently said he didn’t care much for Jim’s moral judgements. 

“I did not want to create new fissures between us. I know that I was…unfair, in what I said to you the other day. You do not ‘do’ anything to me, my feelings are my own.”

“You were right about me, though. I chose not to care and having feelings for you I was blind to just makes it worse.”

“Yes, well…” Oswald trailed off, all of his earlier cheer gone. “If you have nothing more to report we can have a larger meeting about our attack first thing in the morning. Goodnight, Jim.”

“No.”

“…Sorry?”

“It’s just…dinner. We could eat together. If you want.” Oswald was studying him hard and Jim felt like he was a bug under a microscope. 

“You’re asking me out?” He didn’t sound like he quite believed it.

“Obviously we can’t go anywhere, but…”

“But…?” Now he was just messing with him. 

“But I’m asking you on a date and you know it.” Jim huffed, then added seriously. “Unless you still want to be over me?”

“I’ll never be over you, James Gordon. It’s just -”

“It doesn’t have to be anything but dinner right now. I’m never going to hurt you again.”

Oswald was quiet for a moment, but then a small smile broke out over his face and he nodded.

So they had dinner together – Chef Boyardee cooked over Oswald’s wood-burning fireplace. They kept the conversation light, mostly about the idiosyncrasies of people living in the building. They enjoyed each other’s company and Jim fully relaxed for the first time since the city had fallen, for the first time since months before the city had fallen. After they ate Oswald walked him to the door and looked at him with wide, hopeful, eyes…

The kiss started off chaste and stopped just as it started to morph into something else. Jim left behind a grinning Oswald as he also grinned his way down to his apartment on Ten.

The sun did not get to rise before Oswald was summoning Jim back upstairs. He had decided to listen to the radio before bed and there had been an announcement for anybody still alive in Gotham who had not yet made it to a checkpoint. 

The virus needed to be wiped out. In two weeks the military would start firebombing the city.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!!
> 
> This was supposed to be a oneshot for Halloween, but it got a bit out of hand. It currently has two planned parts.


End file.
